Des Moines 22 Jun 2026

Poetry

Looked up and saw the hardly-there moon, 
how it snugged the treeline, then came hard rain.
I remain in long ago, half-awake,
recollection constant second vision.
I hear "I am just visiting this voice" and think,
I am just visiting this body
and when in fuck did my hands become 
utensils of economic shuttlings,
how fizzled the language of my mind
from contouring of self
to cold calculation of money?
Synchronicities stopped happening,
my mirror image became a private image.
The blue numbers flashing, counting... 
Something.
Then I was rolling on the floor,
exorcising ghosts of the past,
they flew away like sparrows, 
perched somewhere, or didn't.

I wrote not to remember the thing, but to change it.
I hated civilization as verb, so faked it.
To enter into a self-determined day, 
look out the window at the throbbing emerald oak, 
that loomer, and old oak's a poem 
saying silence is a mistake.
How to cope with the uncertainty
of whether stuff is the fascia of god
or dead shards of universe,
but magic, music-like,
bowling ball banking between rails,
how shit gravitates into beauty among laws?
I feel the microwaves vibrating my brain cells,
also fuzz of beard, ache of back, clang
echoing through town, ambiguous booms
like maybe gunshots, maybe celebration.

I thought that art could not sustain me,
so studied the truth of nature,
found nature could not sustain me,
found nature is a crucible without art.
I changed my mind.
The more is demanded of me, the more I demand of art.
Realized digital is nature,
spiritual is nature, spiritual is digital
is beauty.
Looked at my watch and the face was all blank,
wondering
how to make a living by staring at the sky,
merge with the machine,
traverse felsenmeer?
Lo, hush of road over slow water,
lights off in anonymous houses,
fingerprint acid stain fading, 
peach juice on brass.